Wednesday 4 May 2011

Cisco CCNP Exams For Networking Engineers

By Paul Browning


Cisco CCNP certification is one of the career certifications offered by the company. It is meant to accredit the candidate as a network professional. The exam should be taken by those with at least a year's worth of networking experience looking to advance into a more independent role handling complex enterprise network solutions.

This means being able to apply for a network or system engineer position, or perhaps as a network technician. Technically, what it does is certify the holder as someone who can plan and implement a LAN or WAN, and troubleshoot it. The road to Cisco CCNP certification is not easy, and the holder will have passed at least 4 exams on the way.

First, the candidate has to pass all the exams required for CCNA certification. This Network Associate certification can be gained by either passing the 640-802 exam or taking the ICND-1 and ICND-2 exams separately. In addition to the CCNA exam(s), the candidate also has to pass three more exams.

These three exams test the candidate on implementing and troubleshooting the company's IP routing and switched network solutions. The first exam is 642-902, a two hour exam where 52 questions have to be answered. The candidate will be tested thoroughly on IP addressing and routing, and implementation of routers for LANs and WANs that connect branches and workers on the move.

The next one (642-813) is on switching networks, which tests the candidate on use of the company's Campus Architecture solution to implement an enterprise switched network. This is also a 52 question exam which has to be completed in 2 hours. Apart from the network planning & implementation, the candidate is also expected to be able to answer questions on integrating VLAN, voice, video, etc.

Unlike the above two exams, the Troubleshoot exam (642-832) will have 35-40 questions that need to be answered in 135 minutes. The main aim is to test the candidate's ability to troubleshoot the above networks. The candidate should know how to run scheduled maintenance tasks, and be able to follow company-defined troubleshooting procedures.

Given the need for such intensive knowledge of company-specific networking products and solutions, it's no big surprise they want candidates to have some experience first. Suffice it to say that these Pearson VUE administered exams will make the candidate sweat hard, on top of having to pay the fees for each exam. It's just their way of making sure that anyone putting in so effort and money will be good enough on the job after being certified as a Cisco CCNP.




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